


A Thousand Paper Cranes

by pcytobens



Series: Soulmate Letters [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Epistolary, Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Letters, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, No Dialogue, Sickness, paper airplanes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2019-10-17 20:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17567717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pcytobens/pseuds/pcytobens
Summary: 'One Thousand Origami Cranes (千羽鶴 Senbazuru) is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes (折鶴 orizuru) held together by strings. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. Some stories believe you are granted happiness and eternal good luck, instead of just one wish, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury.' (WIkipedia)On Kyungsoo's seventeenth birthday, he sent a letter proclaiming he was dead.Jongin wakes up the day before his eighteenth birthday to letters in his bedroom, from a dead nineteen year old.Alternatively, Kyungsoo writes his life story in letters to someone he'll never meet.





	1. Letter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second installment in the 'Paper Airplanes' AU I have. If you haven't read 'Paper Airplanes' yet, I'd recommend you do that first. You don't have to read each book in order or being written, but it is high recommended. If you choose not to, there will be a few things you wouldn't understand that were explained in the first installment.
> 
> Enjoy! This is for everyone who read Paper Airplanes and liked it!
> 
>  
> 
> Here is the [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/9vwx1b4c479y88vnlf310oka9/playlist/5S04wOYBFKzGHli8pZ7yAt?si=nGY3JfG-TsSFRl_29jvhRg) for A Thousand Paper Cranes!

Dear Soulmate,

 

If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. In probably a year from now (I’m graduating in a year), I’m going to be dead.

No, I’m dead. If you’re reading this, I’m most certainly dead. Sorry to spoil the ending for you, but it’s better for you to know this going into my letters. I don’t want you to anticipate meeting me and realize I’m dead. If you get these when you turn eighteen, don’t come looking for me. I don’t want you to spend time with me for a few days and watch me die. I don’t want anyone else to watch me die.

My name is Do Kyungsoo, I’m 17, I live in Ulsan and I have Hodgkin’s lymphoma. More specifically, I have stage three, category four Nodular sclerosis Hodgkin’s lymphoma (Stage III, Category IV NSHL; you don’t want to know how many people confused it for the NHL). I’ll let you look it up on your own, there’s so much jargon to define and talk about, it would take a thousand letters to explain it all. There’s B cells,

They think I got it from my rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It’s an uncommon autoimmune disease. I had it diagnosed when I was 11, after I would cry and cry after trying to move my knees and they wouldn’t move. I took a lot of meds for it (so many, I can’t even describe how many) and the doctor put me in physiotherapy. Usually, non-Hodgkin’s is more common if you have RA, but got Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

After, I got really, really sick. And I mean, REALLY sick. I was throwing up for days and I couldn’t keep anything down. My mom thought I had the flu, but it was much, much, much worse than that. Apparently, your lymph nodes aren’t supposed to be the size of golf balls. Tell someone if your lymph nodes are swollen like a golf ball for two weeks on end. Maybe you’ll be like me, but you wouldn’t want to. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemies.

I had a lot of blood tests done this time last year and they took a bone marrow sample when the blood tests were showing abnormalities. They had to put a needle into my hip to get the marrow. I was in the hospital for a week after that. We got a call after a little while, saying there was a big abnormality in my marrow (meaning they could see the cancerous cells). Then they started talking treatments. This was about May last year.

Thanks to my cancer and RA, I can’t walk anymore. If I want to move, I have to be carried or put into a wheelchair. It feels like my joints are being pulled off and snapped in half. It is the worst feeling ever. See, I’m not even writing these, if you notice some of the handwriting changes. I’m having my friends Chanyeol and Sehun write these. I would have preferred Junmyeon to write them (he has the prettiest writing) but he’s off in university. I can write for a little bit, but my fingers start to tense up and it hurts like hell.

Not being able to write my own letters is agony. I don’t like that my friends will find out some of this stuff about me. It’s even worse than having to shave my hair off. I have no hair now, but Chanyeol says I don’t look bad in it. They (Chanyeol and Sehun and Junmyeon, when he was visiting in the summer) joked that they’d buy me a wig for my birthday, in January. It’s currently September, and I’m actually expecting them to buy me a wig. They’ve always stuck to their word. They’ve snuck me in chocolate and candy since I’ve been hospitalized. I’m so grateful for my friends. We’re as thick as thieves.

Chanyeol’s hand is starting to hurt, so I’m going to stop the letter now.

Sorry for ruining your happy images of us being together. I’ll write as updates about my treatment. Like I said before, I’m probably dead if you’re reading this.

 

-Do Kyungsoo, 17

 


	2. Letter Two

Dear Soulmate,

 

I’m pre-writing all my letters, by the way. I’m still only 17 but I honestly don’t know if I’ll reach 18 to send these. I know there’s a way that the widow of a soulmate can receive the letters if the dead soulmate appoints someone to send them once they die, and if you don’t, you just don’t send at all. There’s a whole bunch of technicalities with it and it’s a complicated situation I honestly don’t want to think about. I don’t want to leave the world and leave you thinking that I’m ignoring you. I’m fine with dying, but not without you knowing.

Sehun gave me the idea to pre-write all these, actually. You can thank him for this whole scenario happening when I’m six-feet-under. He had a good idea for once _(I hated writing that but Mr. Baldie here made me  –Sehun)._ He’s my designated writer right now, since Chanyeol is studying for an exam. I don’t want him to fail because of me. He’s always here visiting me and I’m appreciative of it, worry not, but I don’t want to hinder him and what he does all the time.I want him to be happy, not always sad and worrying about me. I can see what it does to him, the worry lines in his forehead look permanent some days. He’s such a worrywart and I love him, but he needs to chill. He needs to focus on himself before me.

I haven’t been eating a lot recently and I’ve been getting itchy a lot more. They’re giving me my next dose of ABVD in a few days, which makes me happy and frustrated. It makes me feel really sick and I usually throw up because of it, but I know it’s making me better. Chemotherapy is chemotherapy, and I can’t do anything about it.

Chemo isn’t those ladies with the head wraps and pale skin. Well, in some cases, it is. It’s more of vomiting until your throat hurts, you can’t eat because you’re scared that you’re going to throw up again (and because you’re just not hungry), and a really sore mouth from vomit. It’s not fun, it sucks ass. It’s probably worse than knowing you’re dying from cancer. You feel like you’re not getting better, but you know you are.

They had me on ESHAP and ICE for my first couple months on treatment, but they narrowed me down to ABVD, since that medication seemed to be working the best. My doctor’s been talking about taking me off chemo and putting me on radiation, but it hasn’t even been a year yet. They’re just trying to get the cancer out of me as fast as they can, I think. My mom thinks they’re doing the right thing, but I think they’re rushing this. They should just take their time with it.

I’m so tired. I always have the type of tired that you have when you’re hopped up on drugs, but you’ve been up all-night studying. It’s that type of gross fatigue. My body is telling me I need to sleep, but when I end up asleep, I wake up from pain. It’s a lose-lose situation, here, but it’s what I get for my body attacking itself.

Sehun is telling me to stop being so self-deprecating, when he could just write it down. _(Stop being so self deprecating. There, you happy? –Sehun)._ Very happy, thanks, Sehun. I mean, I’m going to die soon anyway, so I mean, you should have fun with it, right? I don’t mean to be nihilistic, but we all die. Some sooner than others, but in the end, we all perish. That reminds me of that video Chanyeol showed me of the ‘hewwo’ person saying, “Then perish.” I’m the Obama “Then perish” side of the video. God, I love that video. It’s so stupid but hilarious.

I’m sending Sehun home now. He’s been here since he got off of school and he skipped cram school because of me. He needs his education. I have a great excuse as to why I’m not in school: I’m dying. Sehun does not have a reason to not be passing calculus.

 

Bye.

 

 

-Do Kyungsoo, 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the medications mentioned:
> 
>  **ABVD:** ABVD is a chemotherapy regimen used in the first-line treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma, supplanting the older MOPP protocol. It consists of concurrent treatment with the chemotherapy drugs: (A)driamycin (also known as doxorubicin/(H)ydroxydaunorubicin, designated as H in CHOP) (B)leomycin.
> 
>  **ESHAP:** ESHAP is a combination chemotherapy treatment used to treat Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and myeloma. ESHAP is given into a vein. You may have it during a hospital stay or as an outpatient. Your cancer doctor or nurse will tell you how often you will have it. ESHAP can cause side effects.
> 
>  **ICE:** ICE in the context of chemotherapy is an acronym for one of the chemotherapy regimens, used in salvage treatment of relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma. In case of CD20-positive B cell lymphoid malignancies the ICE regimen is often combined today with rituximab.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, the third installment, 'Ripped Paper', is out because I'm impatient and I wanted to put it out.


	3. update!

apologies for not updates in almost two months! i've had a loss in my family and i haven't had access to my computer in a while. 

school has also been a thing??¿?¿ i'm entering my senior year for high school and i really really really really needed to focus on my work. (i also completely changed my friend group due to my previous friends being toxic and super judgemental, so that's also a plus)

i hope you all understand if there ain't many updates over the summer, due to my busy schedule (i'm gonna be out with my friends a lot and camping most of the summer) and working. 

thank you so much for sticking with me guys, you all make me un poco loco. (*˘︶˘*).｡*♡

-bee (pcytobens)


End file.
